Used ATF as fuel??
 

Does anyone body have any experience running used ATF as fuel? A transmission shop owner that did the Fummins conversion was going to be trying it running it but i have since lost contact with him. Also had a friend who toyed with sunflower oil as a fuel but his refinement process wasnt up to par as he had to constantly replace fuel filters.

Look around the internet and you'll see that this topic is HUGELY debated by many people. The old timers believe using ATF in the fuel is OK because they used to do this back when diesels were hated by everyone but truckers. But crowds of people appose this who understand that the ATF of today is nothing like the ATF of yesteryear.

The ATF we use now contains additives, anti-burn properties, detergents, etc... All which are not copacetic for properly burning fuel and will do more harm than good to the delicate diesel fuel system components. This doesn't even account for the dirt and crap thats suspended in used ATF oil. Who wants this kinda stuff in their fuel?????

Rather if you're looking a fuel lubricity additive then look at 2-stroke oil.

Also, running any kind of oil fuel additive in trucks post 2007 will be a problem. :thumbsup:

I'm guessing you might be looking for a easy way to get rid of some used ATF you have sitting around(?) I can actually tell you from experience (having run my '03 5.9 on waste vegetable for over 5 years) and having experimented some by adding both waste ATF and waste motor oil to both my stock diesel tank and my waste vegetable oil tank... doing so has not caused any catastrophic effects.

However, that said... both the used ATF and the used motor oil I used were well filtered and not contaminated with anything (i.e. water, etc..). Also, I only added one or the other in relatively small amounts...no more than a gallon of either to a full (34 gal) tank of diesel or wvo. The reason I kept the ratio of WMO or WATF so low... I noticed at higher concentrations, my 03 5.9 began to produce smoke out the tail pipe, and not just a little smoke... a lot of very noticeable, rather embarrassing (call the EPA) amount of grayish-black smoke :eek: which btw would not go away until I ran the stock tank nearly empty and refilled with straight diesel!

Interesting to note (it's been rumored) some of the shop manuals for the older diesels suggested one way to dispose of waste motor oil (from one's oil changes) could be done by simply dumping the wmo back into the vehicle's fuel tank. Of course today's diesels are quite a bit different than the Diesels of 30+ years ago ;)

My factory manual for my 92 D250 suggest this.
I can't remember the ratio off hand but personally have put 5 gallons of WMO into a nearly empty tank and then driven to gas station and filled up with 25 Gallons of #2.

Nice! Rumor finally confirmed all the way up til '92. Rather surprising considering the "emissions police" were fairly well established by this time.

Back then diesels were still considered the red headed step child of the everyday automotive world and received little to no attention from the EPA. No one wanted a diesel. They were LOUD, stinky, hard to find fueling stations, and could hardly get out of their own way. [laugh]

Right. Plus they were extremely temperamental/hard to start in the winter months. Part of the problem came from some of the big auto manufacturers trying to apply gasoline engine designs/parts to diesel engine designs. Most people who bought Diesels back in the 70's/80's won't even consider buying another Diesel to this day... I actually still recall (back in 2005) telling my Dad I was about to buy a Diesel truck and he spent the next 30 minutes trying to talk me out of it - lol

Just looked thru my 97 owners manual, here is what it says "Lube oil blending with the fuel is not permissible. Damage to the catalyst will result."

So it looks like starting with 1/1/94 production the recommendation stopped.

Of course, if Kitty fell off............. [coffee]

I know the Cummins website used to make specific mention of it being acceptable to use up to 5% used lube oil in the fuel for the 2nd gen 24v engines (actually it refered to the "ISB"). They also used to have something called "Cummins Celect" or something like that if I remember right. It was used on the bigger engines and metered a small amount of lube oil from the sump into the fuel system.

I've done it quite a bit in my 2000 truck with no problems. I didn't filter it, but instead put it in jugs and let it settle for a month or two. After that, the top third looked almost like new oil, and got progressively darker, with the the very bottom being pretty sludgy. I only poured half the jug into the tank and took the rest to the recycler. I never had a fuel filter clog up on me, so it seemed to work pretty well.

What you DON'T want under any circumstances is to burn ATF with a high detergent level, such as Dexron...The detergent will sooner or later score the cylinder walls, and if your luck is no better than mine, it will be sooner...A non-detergent, such as Type F used in the old Ford-o-Matics, will probably be OK in limited amounts...[redface]...Ben

Todays ATF is not the same as the ATF from the good old days. Todays ATF is high detergent and has a very high flash point. Not the best for running through a diesel fuel system. But...people claim to have been doing it for years so its to each is own.